Jobs you thought would be fabulous but actually weren't?

[GardenDreams]

I was a full time fine artist for 30 years (traditional painting, mixed media and pattern design) worked with book publishing, freelance, galleries, online print sales, various large companies and a few partnerships with celebs. Not as exciting as it sounds though, lol.

Throughout this period, many people looked at me with awe after asking what I did, mostly in surprise that I could earn enough to live on (it came close, at times). I do get the impression that many people think that this is a very thrilling and freeing way to live, but the reality was quite stressful and scary, at least financially, at times. It was a good long slog, with some tricky customers and another full time job dealing with social media. And the work never, ever stopped - there was no clocking off or guilt free holidays. Aside from the online glamour of how it looks, it eventually becomes less about self expression and more like a production line. At times I was completely, visually exhausted.

There are tons of newly proclaimed artists of a certain age on insta, and now more than ever before are offering art courses (after only 6 months in to being self taught), so it's very much a competitive kind of 'grind' culture which has multiplied in the past 6 years.. It is 'sold' as an alternative, lucrative side hustle, but is actually far from the oh so relaxing vibe these insta accounts make out in their posts.

I am still creating but have moved over into a new field that I love, and only now can I see how utterly draining and hard it was when I look back on it. But I am sure so many people still think the idea is quite romantic and liberating.

Anyone else with a similar story? I am cure there are tons of careers that sound wonderful to me, that might be really soul destroying or at least stressful in reality. My fantasy job would have been an archivist, but I took such a different path at ui that I dare say that boat sailed a long time ago!

"doing pointless admin tasks which change every year because someone’s made up some new regulations to make an administrator’s life easier"

So true!

I'm a midwife and was going to say it's nothing like people imagine it is.

Working in financial crime in a finance company. I thought it would be all smoke and mirrors, investigating criminals. Nope, 95% boring admin.

@LunaNorth I'm really gutted to hear owning a bookshop isn't fun. Currently trying to work out how to do this!

I know a young man who is in IT. He is autistic and has ADHD but is reasonably senior and earns a good salary. I asked him once if his autism affected his relationships in the office and he laughed and said "are you joking? I'm the most socially skilled person in the building!"

Mine was in an environmental regulatory area. A short contract in an administrative role.

It was beyond shockingly unprofessional, toxic culture between licensing and enforcement, and my supervisor was a psychopath. Her relentless shouting and bullying was something else.

Everything was a drama and hyped up to the point of hysteria over tiny things.

They had licenses signed off by the top of department yet frequently pollution parameters were left out. It was up to the company to contact this body.

No logic to administrating licenses or amendments to a license.

i could go on but it is depressing.

WOW! Had not expected this thread to grow, thank you to everyone who has added to it, what a fascinating read!

Someone mentioned earlier about art being a privilege - not really. I have known some of the most talented and dedicated also work in A&E, single mums, guys who stick to it at all costs.
The instagram version is a complete fancified fiction, a lifestyle thing, it has very little connection to real survival. Most of them are retirees with everything already in place, who would NOT have chosen it to pay the bills.

I did struggle at times, and lost out on a few things due to my choices, but art being a privilege is a bit of a myth, I think. Very wealthy people who are enabled by trust funds are a category of their own, of course, but most working artists either rent or own modest homes, and just juggle!

Insta provides a very warped view of what an artistic lifestyle actually is - it is heavily reliant on algorithmic chance (visibility or attention from an influencer), shifting trends and a good deal of business nous. Most won't dare to experiment for fear of follower-death, and it isn't unusual to slap a SOLD sign over ever odd painting to create the illusion of scarcity...

Yes, DH works in tech and this is his experience too.

Been there, done that and changed direction.

There's a script development producer to therapist pipeline for a reason. Ask me how I know. 😄

I worked in television production in my twenties and early thirties. I loved it. Loved the travel. Loved the camaraderie. Loved the challenge. Loved learning new skills. Loved the pay. Didn't love job hunting between jobs and being unable to book holidays in advance as you could get a phone call and start a new contract almost the next day. None of it worked (for me anyway) with having children, so had to start over in another career. I have fantastic memories, but I don't miss it.

Yep- that's a lot of extra work to do with the MA if you don't really need it!
Thanks so much for answering x

I imagine Keir Starmer is finding out that "Prime Minister" is not all its cracked up to be.

Working for a medium sized charity.
When I was younger I spent quite a few years working for a very small neighbourhood charity. Its income was only £300k a year, but it ran masses of projects. The staff also frequently helped people that they were not funded to help, often filling in the gaps of computer says no for other organisations. For example, people advised by a large charity to write a letter for their GP to give access to their medical records so they could help them get PIP. But the person was barely literate. They came to us, we wrote a letter with their agreement, got them to sign it, put the name of their Dr on the envelope, so they could just hand it into reception. A small thing, but we did things like this all the time. We worked with young people in gangs, people in dire poverty, and people with severe mental health problems.

However, I could see the inefficiencies caused by a lack of resources. We struggled to evaluate our services and to put together all the paperwork needed for grant funding. We would spend staff time doing things that could be done more quickly if we had had a tiny bit more money. Everything was on a total shoe string. So I thought moving to a medium sized charity would be much better and I would be much more efficient. I was wrong and I worked for a few.

Instead in larger charities it was just management bullshit, pretending we were having a greater impact than we were - signposting i.e. someone turned up wanting a service the charity did not provide was just given a leaflet about an alternative service, there was no help to make sure they could access that service, or even read the leaflet, but it all got counted for grant outputs. Money spent on marketing rather than delivery. I also came to realise though that they had grown larger because they focussed more on how things looked, rather than the people they were helping, and never did anything they were not paid to deliver. I am not convinced you can grow larger, jump through the hoops to attract that level of income, and still deliver a genuinely good service to people. Maybe you can, but I have not found the charity that does.

Just out of interest - when people say "IT and Tech", what is the actual job titles? Like, programmer? Software developer?

Social Worker, for adults. I trained to support people to live the life they want to live.
In reality we only get to see people when their lives are in complete free fall and we are just fire fighting.
Time with our service users was not prioritised by managers. If I spent a day supporting a hoarder, I was told by a manager that I am a very expensive cleaner.
No resources or poor resources were available to help people. The budgets were tiny and could never meet a persons needs adequately. Placing people at risk, and that risk sat on the person doing the assessment and arranging services. Me.

The paperwork was impossible and tied me to my desk 80% of my working week. We had x days to complete all paperwork, no matter how complex the person or situation. The only productivity measurement was how quickly we completed paperwork, nothing about the difference we made in people’s lives.
Many hours spent in my own time completing paperwork, so I could actually spend time with my cases.
I burnt out. I couldn’t do a good job with the time and resources available and I hated feeling I was letting people down.

I work for a charity now, and feel like I’m actually doing real social work.

@AlarminglyAwful Gosh. This sounds abysmal. I have no idea how you could possibly be expected to do all that in 30 minutes! My first baby used to feed for an hour at a time! It sounds like you did your very best in impossible circumstances. My sister-in-law was a midwife and describes a very similar situation. She said it was the bitchiness that led her to leave the profession. It's very sad!

Was the jab at doctors at the end of your post really necessary? The work they do is a lot more valuable to society than the role you do (regardless of what your research area is, as they are actually out there stopping people from dying). They work insanely long shifts and are treated terribly by the government and the general public.

He is a data analyst - which is, apparently, not at all the same as a data engineer...

My hobbies are my income sources and I obviously do work, but I love it and have so much fun.

I think most of the stress is when people just try to charge for their hobby instead of actually creating a proper business and thinking about proper sales and marketing strategies (not just creating an Etsy or getting a shop with discount rent for a few months).

If I was stressed about money it would be a different story, I wouldn't enjoy it at all.

To whoever wants to run their own bookshop - JUST DON'T! Have you heard of this thing called Amazon?

I used to have a job that everyone thinks is the dream but it's too outing to say - may n/c and come back a bit later to describe the reality

Another one coming to say managing a bookshop.

It was mostly about carrying heavy piles of books around, dusting, and placating crazy angry people (members of the public and local authors).

I was a trainer for a local government new computer system for a year. I am a proper geek, so it was actually my dream job at the time. Trawling through the system and learning it and writing training guides was, to me, so interesting and I loved it. But training people....oh my...it was hell. These were people I knew and worked with and you would think they'd be nice or at least sit there politely like the grown adults they were. On the whole, they were utterly vile and rude to me and my fellow trainers. They basically ripped me to pieces and tore holes in everything I tried to explain/show them. I had one woman who sat and pulled faces at me throughout an entire training session and kept cajoling the other trainees to do the same. She actually tutted and rolled her eyes every time I spoke. It got to the stage where I was physically sick before every training session. I remember one woman actually got a sponsor form out for her son's swimming challenge and started passing it round the room whilst I was speaking. The only upside was a couple of nice groups I had who were attentive and cheerful. I couldn't believe that they were nice and kept waiting for them to turn on me. A few years later, I was approached to do a similar secondment. I politely declined!

This thread reminded me that in my youth I was on track to become a classically trained singer. Was really good and about to become accepted at some major music colleges, but fell pregnant with my arsehole ex and life very much got in the way. (Moving countries, raising a family with a psychopath, you know stuff like that).

I was rather upset at not being a singer for a long time, until about five years ago when it dawned on me that I would have unravelled completely if I had tried living as a musician. It takes dedication and hard work, and is pretty relentless. I know this, because my sister is one.
So it turned out that it was for the best, I guess. Evening work and all the travel and having to be at the top if your game at all times - not for me.

I think I'm glad I didn't have the talent or drive for a passion career. My boring job pays the bills and is totally left behind at the end of the day.

It's fascinating to hear about the downsides.

I'm really hopeful that retirement is a joy.

Thank you for this fascinating thread.

I'm an author and owner of a publishing company but after more than 10 years I am utterly burnt out.